Democrats in the House of Representatives yesterday soundly criticized a health care reform bill they felt was being imposed on them by the Senate, and if they are to be believed, the chances for a smooth reconciliation and passage of a finished product is far from assured, and perhaps on life support.

Mike Stark, FDL’s Hill reporter, talked with several members of the Democratic caucus on Capitol Hill yesterday, and perceived a general frustration with the process, and a willingness not to back down for the Senate’s version of the bill. A representative sample is Oregon’s Peter DeFazio, who attacked the Senate bill from a number of angles and basically said that he could never support it:

DEFAZIO: I think the Senate bill is a disaster. I mean, anybody who’s watching this noticed that insurance industry stocks has gone up since the Senate bill passed, because It gives them a lot of new customers and no meaningful controls. They took out my language stripping the industry of the anti-trust immunity. They established meaningless, spineless, weak state exchanges instead of a national exchange.

They want to tax union workers and others who have good health insurance. Those are all total non-startes with me and I believe with other members of the caucus, and I think, you know, I mean, we can play the same game as the Senate. “You know gee, we’ve got to have a bill Joe Lieberman likes”…. well they’ve only got two votes to spare in the House. so I think this is going to be a tougher negotiation than they think.

DeFazio said that he and his colleagues don’t want to be “jammed by the Administration, who is just in a hurry to get something on the checklist for the State of the Union.” He pronounced his willingness to stand up to the Senate.

Emanuel Cleaver of Missouri had a similar sentiment:

CLEAVER: I don’t think this bill is going to go anywhere [...] In spite of the fact that the news media is proclaiming this bill approved, I’m not in a position, based on everybody I’ve spoken with, to agree with that.

STARK: You think it’s in trouble right now.

CLEAVER: I do think it’s in trouble… But I think ultimately we’re going to get something. I think what comes out may be disapproved, and then in 30 days we may bring something else forth, because we’ve never been this close before. But I think it may take a no vote before people get back on board.

And Joe Courtney, who has become the leader in rallying Democrats against the Senate’s excise tax on high-end insurance plans, had similar thoughts, saying that “I do think there will inevitably be a backlash against health reform if it is left in the state that the Senate gave us.”

courtney

And this kind of sentiment was expressed elsewhere, throughout the caucus. John Garamendi, the former California Insurance Commissioner, said on a conference call that the exchange framework envisioned in the Senate bill would “toss 30 million Americans to these sharks,” namely the insurance companies, because of the lack of a strong regulatory environment. Raul Grijalva of the Progressive Caucus, echoing some other members, signaled that the excise tax was insufficient to secure passage in the House, even if it exempted union workers. Roll Call (subs. only) has an anonymous member saying “The Senate is just a pain in the ass to everybody in the world as far as I can tell.” And our reporter Mike Stark actually heard more Democratic members grumbling in his discussions yesterday.

I spoke with a lot of Democrats that weren’t prepared to go on video with their concerns yet, but one thing that was (almost) universal was a disdain for being rolled by the Senate. These folks believe they are closer to the people and are (at least) a co-equal component of our bicameral legislature. The idea that these guys should screw their constituents to appease a dysfunctional Senate is absolute anathema to them.

Outside the caucus, detractors of the Senate approach were buffeted by advocacy groups, including a coalition representing nine million union workers demanding the defeat of the excise tax.

I don’t want to oversell this too much. The House, including all these members, already voted for a health care bill that was compromised down, on the public option, on the abortion provisions, etc. And to be sure, nobody is saying that the bill is dead, and most are saying that something will eventually pass. So maybe a lot of this is probably just posturing. But the discontent certainly sounds real, the anger is palpable, and the House leadership is taking it seriously.

Rep. Charlie Rangel (D-N.Y.), chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, said that he and other Democrats would press the president when he meets with the caucus on Thursday. Will he be able to sway him?

“I hope so,” said Rangel. “That’s stretching the word hope.” The president, he said, can be very persuasive.

The president’s position is strengthened because few House Democrats want to be the vote that takes down the health care bill, no matter how weak it may be. “Never has 218 been so important to me,” said Rangel, referring to the number of votes needed to pass the bill.

“We’ve got a problem on both sides of the Capitol – a big problem,” said Rangel. Following a quorum call Monday night, the caucus planned to meet behind closed doors to hash out strategy going forward.

Rangel’s quote make clear that, when push comes to shove, House Dems will be under enormous pressure to go along with the bill. But there aren’t a lot of happy faces right now, and with such thin margins for error, just a few obstinate members can basically put a stop to things. And that’s before we get to the Senate, where the likes of Lieberman and Nelson could take hostages based on whatever changes get made. As I’ve been saying for weeks, victory on a final bill is just not a done deal yet. It’s barely even probable.

President Obama meets with Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid, presumably to go over the health care bill, later today.